


12 Grimmauld Place, Home for Wayward Witches and Wizards

by Kanari



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen, Harry Potter Epilogue What Epilogue | EWE, Post-Hogwarts, Post-War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-31
Updated: 2018-08-31
Packaged: 2019-07-04 23:34:37
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,377
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15851712
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kanari/pseuds/Kanari
Summary: In the wake of the Battle of Hogwarts, Harry finds himself with a house but not a home. Not wanting to be alone, he soon finds out that some of his friends have neither in the war's aftermath.





	12 Grimmauld Place, Home for Wayward Witches and Wizards

**Author's Note:**

> This idea just came to me one day and wouldn't leave me alone so I had to write it down. First fanfic I've ever written so I hope it's ok!

Harry hadn't thought about where he would stay until the early morning, sitting at the dinner table in the Burrow. The final battle at Hogwarts had only been hours before and, although celebrations had started almost as soon as Voldemort's body had fallen to the ground, the night had slowed to mourning those who were lost. The Weasleys had converged in the Burrow to remember Fred as a family and all of the children seemed to be staying the night. 

Harry didn't realise he was falling asleep in his chair until Mr Weasley woke him up to ask if he was staying. Staring at the grieving family around him, Harry hurriedly assured them he was just about to leave to get some rest. Getting up, he felt almost homeless, despair gripping him for a minute before a remembered that he had 12 Grimmauld Place to crash at. Berating himself for forgetting in his tiredness, Harry hoped that Kreacher was still alive as he was almost scared at the prospect of staying in the large house alone. 

 

Sitting quietly in an armchair, Hermione felt like she was imposing on the mourning family and didn't want to ask the Weasleys if she could stay. With her parents in Australia not knowing they had a daughter and her muggle house sold, Hermione resigned herself to a night in the tent she'd spent the last few months in before finding a motel in the morning. That is until she saw Harry leaving and realised where he was going. Quickly jumping up, she followed outside to where he planned to apparate.

"Can I stay with you at Grimmauld Place, Harry? It-it would just be for a few days before I go find my parents. It's just, here..." She trailed off but Harry just nodded in understanding and relief.

"Of course you can stay! Stay as long as you like," he replied with a smile "it'll be great to have someone else in that house, even for a little while."

Hermione stayed, living out of her little, beaded bag for three day recovering from the fighting before she determinedly went off to Australia. A week later she came back, muted and alone, with tears in her eyes. Harry just hugged her tight and told her that Grimmauld Place was her home, as much as it was his and helped her unpack.  
And Grimmauld Place gained it's first two occupants post-war.

 

During the week that Hermione was away, Harry was having one of his many dinners with the Weasleys when he overheard talk of the Lovegoods. 

"Stop eating so much Ron! I was hoping there'd be leftovers." 

The worry in Ginny's voice caught Harry's attention, as it was the most emotion he'd seen her show since Fred's death.

"Don't worry dear, I already put a whole plate of food to the side so we wouldn't have the same problem as yesterday. Your brother can eat as much as he wants." Mrs Weasley assured with a ghost of a smile.

Upon asking what the saved meal was for, Mr Weasley spoke up for the first time that evening. 

"Harry, I forgot you hadn't heard. Xenophilius Lovegood hasn't been seen since the war ended and he's presumed missing. The Ministry's looking but there's a lot of missing and displaced people and the Ministry is still trying to rebuild. His daughter, Luna has been staying at their place all by herself. Ginny found out yesterday and insisted we do something to help, so we've been feeding the poor girl."

His heart constricted as he though of the state that he'd seen the Lovegood house in last and hoped, although it was unlikely, that at least some of it had been fixed.

"If you don't mind, I can take that over for her. I need to ask her something anyways."

Harry found Luna living in a tent beside the rubble that was once her home. Wincing at the destruction he helped cause, Harry hurried off to the Ravenclaw. He spotted her picking items out of the debris in the field behind the house and Harry realised what he had to do.

"Hi Harry, I hope there's cabbage on that plate, it'll help with the Gulping Plimpy's."

Smiling at his friend, Harry jumped straight into asking if she wanted to come stay with him at Grimmauld Place, at least until her father was found or her house was rebuilt. On seeing her blank gaze, he rushed on to tell her she could paint as much of the place as she wanted (merlin the whole house had to be redone soon), that there was multiple colonies of magical creatures living in the house that she could investigate (Nargles may or may not have been mentioned) and that the house would feel so much more like a home with someone else in it (as he didn't know how Hermione was going with her parents.) Realising he as rambling, Harry finally expressed his concern for her living in a tent (magical or otherwise) and how he would give anything to have the young blonde be in a safe and comfortable place.

"Oh Harry, that would be wonderful!" Luna exclaimed with a hug, almost making Harry drop the magically warmed plate of food he was still holding. "A home, I haven't had one of those in a while. This place isn't my home anymore and my father's not coming back so a place to stay would be lovely. Thank you."

"What are friends for?" I'm happy to have a place you might be able to call home."

Luna's smile became a bit sad and only said, "You might regret this" before turning to collect her stuff. That day Luna Lovegood became the third person to call Grimmauld Place her home.

 

It wasn't until the day after Luna had settled in did Harry understand what he might regret. It was the day of the Malfoy trails, one of the first in a long list of Death Eaters and their associates to be conducted, and all three Malfoys were to be convicted on the same day. Both Harry and Hermione had sent in statements to Wizengmot detailing what Narcissa and Draco Malfoy had done for them during the war, but Harry wished to see the proceedings himself. 

The result of the day found both Narcissa and Draco placed under probation, resulting in each having a personal auror who would check their wands for illegal magic every two weeks for the foreseeable future as well as monthly reports on their good behaviour. In addition, Narcissa was also placed under house arrest for the next year. Harry felt oddly at peace with these sentences, that is, until it came to Lucius. Lucius Malfoy come into the court room riding the coat tails of whatever positivity there was in Narcissa and Draco's cases and swindled his way out of Azkaban. Instead, he was given house arrest, though no end date for the house was given. However, Lucius was banned from performing any kind of magic for at least two years, after which the situation would be reinvestigated, and the Malfoy vaults were to be restricted for the same amount of time so that only enough money to pay for the cost of living could be withdrawn. Harry was happier at this last bit, as there would be no bribing come the next court date.

After the hearing was over, Harry was accosted Luna before he could leave. Surpirsed as he was to see her there, he was even more surprised to see her dragging Draco Malfoy in his direction. 

"Well, that didn't go as it should've with Lucius." Harry muttered darkly.

"No it didn't, not at all what I hoped," Luna said, looking far more anxious and nervous than he'd ever seen her. "Harry, I was hoping you would consider somthing. Is there any way that you would let Draco stay with us?"

"Why?" The question was sharp as Harry stared hard at is school nemesis in front of him, who seemed to shrink at his gaze.

"I can't go back there," Draco's eyes were pleading and his face distraught, paler than Harry had ever seen him. "I can't live in the Manor - in the place He was in, and now with my father stuck there - if the Malfoy vaults weren't restricted I'd find a place but -" The blonde boy stopped to let out a mirthless laugh "Hell, I'll be happy to stay in that tent that Lovegood has if she'd give it to me."

The boy-who-lived just raised his eyebrows and stared, confused at the pair of blondes.

"Draco isn't that bad Harry. He was always as kind as he could be to me last year and actually made imprisonment as pleasant as it could've been. And after the war, he came and apologised. Draco was on the wrong side and trapped there."

Staring at Draco, Harry realised he knew that look of desperation Malfoy tried to hide, he'd seen it before, in the mirror, every year before the summer holidays when he was forced to go back to the Dursleys. With a snort of frustration, Harry gave in.

"Fine! But this isn't permanent yet. Any funny business and you're on the street. Oh, and if Hermione comes back to stay at Grimmauld Place she has every right to kick you out and I won't lift a finger, got it?" 

Harry whirled around before he could see Draco flinch at the mention of Hermione and shoot Luna an unsure look.

"Got it, Potter."

Already doubting himself on this choice, Harry lead Luna and the fourth member of 12 Grimmauld Place out of the Ministry.

 

It took Draco almost 24 hours to have enough courage to leave his room once Hermione came back. He found her at breakfast, already looking wounded, and the pair had a short and quiet conversation in the dining room before Hermione strode back into the kitchen and dragged Harry out of the house still holding a piece of toast. Harry was just thankful he'd decided to get changed before coming downstairs as she apparated the pair to Diagon Alley. 

"I want a library."

Harry jumped, happy her first words to him that day weren't a curse or jinx and totally missed what she had said.

"What?"

"I said, I want a library. Malfoy can stay but I want a library. Of course it'll be all of ours, but I want to be about to kick Draco out of the library if he's being a prat. I don't want to be holed up in my room all the time. There's enough rooms, one of them is going to be a library." Hermione insisted, marching Harry up the street to Flourish and Blotts. "Oh, and you're getting me the latest edition of Hogwarts a History, the one with the leather cover. I've been eyeing it for awhile."

Harry readily agreed, seeing as he had enough money to probably buy her one of each edition ever made. That's how Harry and Hermione stumbled into Neville Longbottom, who was coming out of the shop with a thick herbology textbook under his arm. Happy to see their friend, the three moved out of the way to catch up.

Harry was about to ask Neville why he had a herbology textbook when Neville asked Hermione what she knew about muggles and renting. Renting a property was a very muggle thing, as many wizarding houses were filled with personal family magic and many generations would live under the same roof. If a family member didn't want to live in the house anymore, they would simply save up and buy their own.

"Not as much as you're probably hoping. It's been a while since I've been in muggle London."

The Gryffindor boy looked so downcast at this that Harry's curiosity got the better of him and he blurted out "Why do you want to know about renting?" 

Neville coloured a bit but replied anyways, "I've been staying in the Leaky Cauldron but I've been trying to find a more permanent place to stay. It's my gran, you see, we got in a bit of an argument the other day and I kinda left the house. Don't get me wrong, she loves me and is proud of me for what I did at Hogwarts this year but that's the thing, she wants me to keep doing that. It hasn't even been 3 weeks and she wants me to go back out there and hunt down the last of the Death Eaters and all that."

Harry placed a sympathetic hand on his shoulder, knowing all to well what great expectations others had for him, while Hermione smiled comfortingly at him and motioned for him to continue.

"I just want to relax and catch up on all the herbology I missed this year. I want to study herbology after school or maybe even teach it." Neville motioned to the book in his hands and looked down, embarrassed at his admission. "I told my gran this and she acted like it insulted her that her 'war-hero' grandson was going to spend his life looking at plants. I had to leave. I might go back, but not anytime soon."

"Come stay with us." Harry blurted out, only slightly surprising himself.

But Neville looked unsure, so Hermione added, "Don't worry about space, there's an overabundance of it if you ask me. We'd love to have you."

"Well, if you - if you're sure, then yeah, that sounds great - really great." Neville stuttered, a smile growing slowly. 

"First things first then," Harry grinned "I've promised Hermione a library, so we're going to go get a library. Come on Neville, anymore herbology books you want for your section in the library? And what am I going to put in my part?"

With that, Harry followed Hermione into the shop with Neville close behind. The first book Harry placed on his shelf once the library was finished was about a wizard in Nepal growing gravity-resistant trees and the implications that had on broomsticks and flying. It had been a gift from the fifth resident to move into Grimmauld Place, given in thanks for letting him claim the house as his home.

**Author's Note:**

> Let me know what you thought and whether I should make this into a story or not! I'd love to hear what you have to say


End file.
